Name : Albertus Yordhana Arsanto

Class : A
Stu.# : 121214017
Video Games cause Violence Behavior Problems

Video games are very popular for children and youth around the world. Virtual gaming
has become more popular with a wide range of sport, travel, and war games are available on the
market and in the internet. Video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction
with user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. Now, video games have been a
controversial topic among psychologist because video games make violence behavior problems.
One example of video games is Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat depicts a fight between two
opponents. The winner is the player who is the first to kill the opponent. A player can murder
his opponent by decapitating him, or by electrocution, or he can rip out his opponents heart with
his bare hands or he can tear off the head of his opponent with his bare hands. Researches show
that people who play video games are at risk on video game addiction, decreasing the learning
process performance and increase their antisocial activity.
First, video game addiction is an excessive or compulsive use of computer games or
video games, which interferes with a person's everyday life. People who are crazy with playing
the game will spend their time to play the game. It has been found that 8.5 per cent of 818-year-
old US video game players do so at pathological levels (Gentile, 2009). Similar studies have
found figures of 11.9 per cent in Europe (Grusser et al, 2007), 8.7 per cent in Singapore (Choo et
al, 2010), 10.3 per cent in China (Peng & Li, 2009) and 4 per cent for 1218-year-olds in
Norway (Johansson & Gtestam, 2004), with a further 15.5 per cent. These are very ironist that
people spend the time to play the game. Playing video games at a pathological level cause
damage to family, social and school (Anderson, 2012).
Second, researchers have found that video games decreases someones learning process
performance, it is well established that spending longer hours playing games is related with
poorer learning process performance for both children and adults. It is a displacement of time, a
study or reading time is used to play the game that disturbs their study. For example, when there
is gamer who has homework but he/she wants to play a game. Then, he/she forgets to do his/her
homework. It can decrease his/her learning process performance. A study of 1491 youth between
10 and 19, gamers spent 30 per cent less time reading and 34 per cent less time doing homework
(Cummings & Vandewater, 2007). It is also possible; however, that youth who perform more
poorly at school are also more likely to spend more time playing games, where they may feel a
sense of mastery that avoids them at school (Anderson, 2012). However, another possibility is
the excessive gaming creates less attention.
Third, playing video games not only game addiction and decrease their learning process
performance but also leads to decrease their social interaction behavior in their life. Anderson
(2010) found that violent video game exposure was significantly related to lower pro-social
behavior regardless of research design. Barlett (2009) suggest that violent video games may
contribute to lower self-reported empathy. People waste their time to play game and they dont
have time to interact with other people because they just play in their room or gaming place.
They have interacted with a lot of people but just in the game not in their real life. It makes
people do not have social interaction with others in the real life. People will not have many
times to go with their friends or find new friends in their life.
On the contrary, there is a research about video game says that video games make
students quick thinking, making fast analysis and decisions. According to research at the
University of Rochester, led by Daphne Bavelier, a cognitive scientist, games simulating
stressful events such as those found in action games could be a training tool for real-world
situations. Playing action video games primes the brain to make quick decisions. Importantly,
decisions made by action-packed video game players are no less accurate. According to Bavelier,
"Action game players make more correct decisions per unit time. If you are a surgeon or you are
in the middle of a battlefield, which can make all the difference. For example, "Counter Strike"
series have become one of the games that require a solid teamwork. The players act as a counter-
terrorist or terrorist squad consists of 3-8 members. At the beginning of the game, player can
choose the team, terrorist or counter terrorist. If the team is counter-terrorist, the team has to
defuse the boom planted by the terrorist team. This mission will ignite the sense of logical
thinking and strategy formations in which formal education does not offer.

In conclusion, video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with
user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. Video game is now controversial
topic because it has made violence behavior problems. There are three violence behavior
problems. First of all is video game addiction that cause people damage their family, social and
education. Then, decrease the learning process performance because people waste their time to
play the video games and they do not have enough time to study. After that, increase their
antisocial activity because they dont have time to go with their friends and find new friends. As
long as it is remembered that video games are fantasy and life is not for just a game.
Sources:
http://phys.org/news203599948.html
http://www.umich.edu/~rpgstudy/AEJMCAggression.doc
https://www.bakeru.edu/faculty/dhatcher/